Ramnaresh Sarwan

Number three is one of the most demanding positions in the batting order, and for the better part of a decade, Ramnaresh Sarwan owned it for West Indies. Technically excellent and unflustered under pressure, the Guyanese right-hander became one of the format's most productive batters at the position during the 2000s. Hailing from Guyana, he showed enough promise as a boy to be fast-tracked through the system, and during the 1995/96 season, he made his first-class debut.

Sarwan's rise to international cricket came four years later. He made his Test debut against Pakistan in Barbados in May 2000 and remained unbeaten in both innings against a fearsome pace attack led by Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis. His ODI debut followed soon after, on a tour of England the same year, but his early promise was tested almost immediately by a torrid tour of Australia in 2000-01, where a string of low scores nearly cost him his place. He also struggled for a time to convert good starts into centuries, posting more than a dozen half-centuries before finally reaching three figures against Bangladesh in 2002.

From there, his career took off. He played a key role in West Indies chasing down a then world record target of 418 against Australia in Antigua in 2003, and was appointed vice captain to Brian Lara that same year. He continued to produce big scores against strong opposition through the mid 2000s. He was also involved in a heated on field exchange with Australia's Glenn McGrath during a Test in Antigua in 2003, one of the more talked about flashpoints of that era. His finest stretch came in 2009, when a prolific series against England brought him a career best score of 291 at Bridgetown.

Sarwan eventually inherited the West Indies captaincy following Lara's retirement in 2007, though injury kept him out of the side for close to a year around that time, and the role never fully settled into a long term tenure. His career wound down through a series of setbacks in his final years, including the loss of his central contract in 2010 amid public disagreements with the board over his fitness and attitude, for which he later won damages. He played his last Test against India in 2011, and after 18 months out of the ODI side, returned briefly in 2013 before an unbeaten century against Zimbabwe turned out to be one of his final international contributions. He formally announced his retirement from international cricket in 2016, at a ceremony held fittingly at his old primary school.

Retirement did not mean stepping away from the game entirely. He returned to the West Indies set-up in 2019 as a batting consultant ahead of that year's World Cup, brought in by director of cricket Jimmy Adams to work specifically on the batting group's running between the wickets and their finishing in the shorter formats. He also served as assistant coach of the Jamaica Tallawahs in the Caribbean Premier League, a role that ended amid a very public falling out with Chris Gayle in 2020. In 2022, he was appointed to the West Indies' senior and youth selection panels alongside chairman Desmond Haynes, having earlier chaired Guyana's own domestic selection panel, but he stepped down from the national role after only about five months, citing personal reasons.